The other steps involved in the strategy phase include the wishlist and launch pad website. Here’s how they work.

Wishlist

Once you develop an overall strategy, you can move onto your wishlist.

In this step, you get to dream up everything you’ve ever wanted to accomplish with your website.

Dream big.

Reach for the stars.

Write it all down.

Describe in detail the elements that should be on the website in order to achieve your goals, and don’t let practicality get you hung up.

You should develop your wishlist in money-is-no-obstacle mode and as if you had all the time in the world.

Make sure to include components like:

Website pages and sections.

Marketing assets.

Tools and resources.

Features and functionality.

Design elements.

User experiences based on location, device, etc.

Your completed list could have anywhere from 50 to 150+ ideas for the new website.

But don’t worry. You won’t immediately implement every idea into the website design process. But you want to have this storehouse of ideas from which to pull.

Now, you’ll use the ideas to create an initial action item list that will comprise the first phase of the website design process.

The strategy is flexible and agile enough that you will be able to add new ideas and elements to the website as you go, continuously improving the design based on action items that are a priority.

Launch Pad Website

In traditional design, the website that goes live (after months and months of development) is the “finished” product.

But in growth-driven design, the initial website is called a “launch pad.”

It’s just enough to cover all the essentials that your site needs to go live and get results.

Think of it as a starting point from which your web design team can make improvements.

It won’t be perfect, and it’s not meant to be.

The thing is, if you can’t get your website launched quickly, you can’t learn from users and gather data upon which to make changes.

Very important point:

By getting the launch pad website up and running quickly, you’ll avoid spending time and money building components that you don’t need.

As a general rule, you’ll want to boil all the components down to the essential 20% of the design that you need to launch the website so you can continuously learn from it and make improvements.

How do you determine that 20%?

Review the list and separate what you think are the most vital components.

Now, narrow down the list even further to your “must haves” and “nice to haves.”

Then, keep working your way through the list, and keep only the items that are absolutely necessary to launch the initial site, and separate out the other action items that can wait two or three months.

Final Thoughts

You don’t have to subject yourself to the painful, risky process of designing your website the traditional way.

Opt for growth-driven design, and use its strategy, wishlist and launch pad website approach to building a website to your advantage.